Embedded Help and Guided Tours are getting a boost in the Jakarta release to assist users. While both have been available since the Helsinki release, with Jakarta comes the introduction of the Embedded Help app, allowing administrators to create customized versions of both Embedded Help and Guided Tours. As you might expect, we are as excited about this as you are!
The new application, called Embedded Help, includes the following modules: Help Content, Role Priority, and includes the Guided Tour Designer, allowing you to create guided tours and list existing ones.
What is Embedded Help?
Embedded Help provides focused help to a user in a UI page based on their role. When you click the help icon, Embedded Help content appears in the right sidebar. If there is embedded help for the current UI page, the help icon has this indicator, showing there is embedded help available:
Organizations now have the ability to add or replace custom embedded help content to suit their business needs.
If embedded help is not available for a topic, the User Guide and documentation site search is available in the sidebar.
If you click the Search Documentation link, a documentation search is performed for the page you started from. For example, if you click Search Documentation from the Catalog Tasks list view, the search term becomes Catalog Task, and any matching information is listed.
What are the benefits of Embedded Help?
Embedded Help provides help for custom applications, focused instructions aligned with specific business purposes, embedded help content where it currently does not exist, and different content based on different roles.
Additional information available for administrators:
- Embedded Help system properties - Change the system properties to adapt and modify how your instance interacts and uses Embedded Help.
- Embedded Help planning - Plan the content and include all the information and details as you begin to plan Embedded Help content.
- Embedded Help roles - Assign Embedded Help based on specific roles.
- Modify Embedded Help role priority - Change what Embedded Help content a user accesses, based on assigned roles.
- Add custom Embedded Help from a copy - Customize Embedded Help by editing a base system topic.
- Add custom Embedded Help content - Create custom Embedded Help topics.
What is a Guided Tour?
Guided Tours demonstrate how to use a feature, using different elements to provide steps, instruction, and how to move along within the guided tour. They show you how to do something within the instance, such as how to perform a task.
Using the Guided Tour Designer, administrators can now create customized guided tours. An administrator creates a guided tour within the instance. If the guided tour shows you how to insert a record, at the end of the tour the record now exists in the database. For example, if a manager completes a guided tour to create a department report, that report becomes available to everyone in that department.
Parts of a Guided Tour include: steps which provide definition or instruction, callouts to indicate current steps and how to proceed with additional instruction, and triggers to move the tour along, like clicking Enter or Next.
In the above example, each of these elements exist. The step is the action. For example, the Delegates list opens, with the new record added. The callout is the box with the upward pointing arrow box explaining what has just been accomplished, or the action that has just been completed. The trigger is the Done button, concluding the tour.
Each callout should be selected based on the direction it is pointing; it must touch the element it is assigned to.
To access an existing guided tour, navigate to a page with a guided tour. If your role is assigned to the tour, the Help panel opens and the Take a Tour button is available at the bottom. If there is more than one tour available to choose from, like the image below, just select the correct tour from the list. Tours might also be available to various roles for access and availability.
Additional Information available for administrators:
- Guided tour advice - Tips for planning your Guided Tour, including: outline, selecting triggers, and callout placement.
- Guided tour triggers - Specify the trigger for each Callout, prompting the next step to occur.
- Guided Tour Designer interface - Designing the Guided Tour by using feature elements, and testing them as you go.
- Add a guided tour - Steps to adding a new Guided Tour, once your outline is in place.
- Edit a guided tour - Change the settings, edit or reorganize the Guided Tour steps.
- Use a view with a guided tour - Assign a list or form view if changing views.
Customizing Embedded Help and Guided Tours allow administrators to help employees perform their jobs better and more efficiently. Updating and modifying embedded help provides targeted assistance to a user. Creating customized guided tours let administrators demonstrate step-by-step walkthroughs, navigating through the details of what the user is doing.
Looking for more information? Check out the Embedded Help Release notes for Jakarta, or watch a Guided Tour unfold with josh.nerius Getting Started with the Guided Tour Designer in Jakarta.
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